
SABBATH SCHOOL LESSON QUARTERLY
9
England for its great darkness. . . . The darkness extended
over several thousand square miles, though differing much in
intensity in different places. Nowhere, perhaps, was it
greater than in this vicinity. The day was appropriately
called and is still known as the dark day."—"History of the
Town of Hampton, New Hampshire," by Joseph Dorr, Salem,
Massachusetts, printed by the Salem Press and Printing Com-
pany, 1893, volume 1, page 217.
"There appears to have been absence of clouds for the
most part, though light rain occurred. Though known as the
`Black Friday of New England,' the area covered by dark-
ness also extended west of that section."—"Encyclopedia
Americana," the Americana Company, New York, 1903, ar-
ticle "Dark Day."
"The darkness of the following evening was probably as
deep and dense as ever had been observed since the Almighty
first gave birth to light; it wanted only palpability to render
it as extraordinary as that which overspread the land of
Egypt in the days of Moses. If every luminous body in the
universe had been shrouded in impenetrable shades, or struck
out of existence, it was thought the darkness could not have
been more complete. A sheet of white paper, held within a
few inches of the eyes, was equally invisible with the black-
est velvet."—Article by R. M. Devens, "Our First Century,"
1776-1876; "Great and Memorable Events," pages 89-96.
3.
A few years preceding the darkening of the sun, on
November 1, 1755, occurred one of the greatest of earthquakes
known in history. It is commonly known as the Lisbon
earthquake, because the greatest loss of life occurred in that
city; but the area of its agitation was over four million square
miles. About ninety thousand persons lost their lives on that
fatal day. A large part of Europe and north Africa was
shaken, and the agitation was felt as far north as Greenland
and as far west as the West Indies.
4.
"The most sublime phenomenon of shooting stars, of
which the world has furnished any record, was witnessed
throughout the United States on the morning of the thirteenth
of November, 1833. The extent of this astonishing exhibition
has not been precisely ascertained; but it covered no incon-
siderable part of the earth's surface. . . . The whole heavens
seemed in motion, and suggested to some the awful grandeur
of the image employed in the Apocalypse, upon the opening
of the sixth seal, when the stars of heaven fell unto the
earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she
is shaken of a mighty wind.' "—Burritt's "Geography of the
Heavens," pages 157, 158.
"No philosopher or scholar has told or recorded an event,